Mrs. Houdini (25 page)

Bess thought about it. She looked around her at the white candles floating on the pool, the waiters serving lobster croquettes in the sunken garden. “I don't suppose I usually do that. Usually people approach me.” She paused. “That sounded very narcissistic, didn't it?”

“Yes, a bit.”

She turned to see Gladys and Lloyd making their way toward them. Lloyd greeted them but then was dragged away by a group of male friends. “Will you be all right here?” he asked Gladys as he left.

Bess found the question insulting. “Of course she'll be all right. I'm here.”

Lloyd held up his hands. “Sorry.”

Bess leaned toward her sister-in-law when he had gone. “Are you sure he's trustworthy?”

Gladys laughed. It was a sound Bess had not heard in some time. “What could he possibly be taking advantage of? My money? We both know he has loads more than I do.” She frowned. “You're the one who encouraged me to get out of the apartment more.”

Bess took her hand. “I'm just looking out for you.”

“Well, you don't need to.” Gladys reached for the concrete edges of a sundial to support herself. “What about you? I can tell you've got a man there. Is that a date?”

“No!” Bess sputtered. “This is Charles Radley. He's—” She thought quickly. “He's a photographer. He's photographing my house.”

Charles held out his hand. “Pleasure to meet you.”

Gladys looked at him quizzically. “Charles Radley? Your voice sounds familiar. Do you live here?”

“No. I came up from New Jersey.”

“That's odd. I'm certain I've met you before. You've never lived in New York?”

“No. I spent a few years in Iowa, but that didn't last.”

“Iowa?”

“My mother died when I was eleven. I was sent on an orphan train to live out there.”

Bess turned to him, surprised. “I didn't know that. Why did you come back east?”

Charles shrugged. “That's a story for another day.”

Gladys held up her hands. “Do you mind if I feel your face?”

Charles blinked and glanced at Bess. “All right, I suppose.”

Gladys pushed a strand of dark hair behind her ear and reached for his forehead. She ran her fingers gently over his eyebrows and down the sides of his cheeks. Bess had rarely seen her do this, but she seemed unusually intent tonight. Charles closed his eyes. There seemed to be something between them, she thought, some kind of attraction. At last Gladys said, “You're right. We've never met.”

Charles stepped back. Jack Dempsey had arrived—Gladys had said he might—along with his manager and a crowd of other men, and the exclamations of the women were growing noticeably louder.

“Why are you having your house photographed?” Gladys asked. “You're not planning on selling it, are you?”

“No, nothing like that.” Bess searched hurriedly for a response. “I feel I owe it to Harry,” she said, taking another sip of champagne. “He put a lot of thought into the place, and it ought to be commemorated.” She looked at Gladys. Bess could tell she didn't believe her. Gladys had a knack for sorting out truths from falsehoods.

Now that the sun was almost down, the white brick walls of the house took on the pinks and egg blues of the sky. Bess could hear the water splashing faintly against the rocks, past the clatter of the party, and she imagined it could be very peaceful when it was quiet, but also very lonely. All the big houses out here were probably filled with children, and nannies, and tutors, and the children's friends. She wasn't quite sure what one would do, however, without children, or work. Her own days were only partially full taking care of Harry's affairs, and running the tearoom; but she still had empty hours, mostly at night, when a kind of darkness sometimes descended upon her. When Harry was alive, she had felt this emptiness less often, only when he was immersed in his work and excluded her from his thoughts. But looking back, she realized that they were always traveling, and when they were at home, there was Mrs. Weiss puttering about, and Gladys, and all of Harry's business acquaintances passing through the house with some urgent matter or another. She had had no idea how hollow the nights could feel, the bruised blue of the darkness seeming to last forever. She wondered what she would do with herself if her tearoom failed.

“How is Abby?” Gladys asked.

“She's doing much better, as of this morning. Stella is relieved, obviously, but she's also a bit sad. Abby decided she wants to keep the baby for herself. The scare changed her mind, I'm sure.”

Gladys nodded. “That is sad for Stella. She thought she was going to have a chance to be young again.”

“I remember saying once, in California, ‘Life is meant to be enjoyed; I'll behave when I'm old.' And now, of course, I am old, and so is Stella.” She looked at Gladys. “Will I see you tomorrow at the tearoom, our usual time?”

“I'm not sure. It depends what time I get back to the city.”

“Oh.” Bess frowned.

“I'll try,” she said.

They stayed another hour, but Bess could tell Charles was uncomfortable in the extravagant gardens. She said good-bye, but as the car was being brought around, Gladys took her aside privately. “Who is that man you brought, really?”

“I met him in Atlantic City. He's a photographer.”

“I know. You said that.” Gladys seemed agitated.

Bess laughed. “It's not romantic between us, but I don't think
you
should fall in love with him either. He's thinking of becoming a priest.”

Charles was waving them over. “The car's here,” he called. “Are you coming?”

Bess kissed Glady's cheek. “We'll talk tomorrow.”

Bess woke in the middle of the night, struggling for breath. She fumbled for the lamp and sat up in the yellow glow. She couldn't remember what she had been dreaming about, although she felt much more clearheaded than she had when she'd fallen asleep. And she was hungry. Her stomach groaned.

She wrapped herself in a robe and padded downstairs, barefoot, to the kitchen. As she passed the library, she realized the fireplace was lit, and there was a lamp on next to Harry's desk. Charles was sitting in Harry's old chair, hunched over, his back to her.

“What are you doing?” she said. “That's Harry's desk.”

He spun around. But instead of looking guilty, he looked stricken. His face was white as a ghost's. “Bess,” he said. “What is this?”

In his palm was a tiny rectangular photograph. Bess took it and came up beside him so she could hold it to the light. A young boy gazed back at her from the creased cardboard. He was posing in a studio in front of a painted backdrop of cherubs and clouds, his face solemn.

“I don't know,” she said. “Why were you looking through Harry's things?” Was he trying to steal from her? She realized she didn't know Charles well at all. And she rarely had guests in the house. She felt a small shiver run through her; George was not here tonight, and they were alone.

“I couldn't sleep. I was looking for a book to read.” Charles retrieved the photograph, pinching it delicately between two fingers. “I found this inside one of the books. A Forster novel—one of my mother's favorites. And this picture—this is me. As a child.”

Bess stared at him. “Are you sure?” It barely looked a thing like him.

“This photograph was part of my mother's possessions. Why would you have this in your house?” He seemed eerily calm.

“I don't know. My husband was a collector. He bought all kinds of things.”

“But don't you see,” Charles insisted. “This is more than a coincidence. There's something to this. Clearly your husband is trying to come through to us here.”

Bess felt her pulse quicken. “What are you saying?”

Charles grabbed her hands and pulled them to his chest. “I'm saying he's
chosen
me, Bess. Just like you said. I have to admit I was skeptical when you came to me. But why would my photograph be in your house? It must have been sold with my mother's things and somehow Harry came into possession of it. In some antiques store, maybe. Some auction.”

In her exhaustion she couldn't quite muster up the same enthusiasm. She wasn't sure he was being rational. Instead, she felt a wash of sympathy for him. He seemed suddenly very young, boyish almost, behind his glasses.

“What was it like on the orphan train?” she asked gently. “Was it dreadful?”

“They were very poor conditions.” Charles looked away, toward the window. “There was not enough room for all of us. We were not told where we were going. Some of us, who were older, thought we were being taken into the wilderness to be left.”

Bess gasped. “But was your new family loving to you, when you arrived?”

“They were kind enough. But they never loved me. They loved their dead son, who had died of fever. I stayed until I was seventeen, but then I left with another boy who hated it out there, too, and came back east.”

“What about the rest of your family? There were no brothers or sisters? No aunts or uncles? What about your father?”

Charles shook his head. “I never knew my father. He was a criminal, and died in prison.”

Bess wanted to reach out and wrap her arms around him. He was so vulnerable, standing there before her.

“What was your mother like?”

“She was beautiful.”

“How did she die?”

“She kept company with all the wrong people. She was shot by a man she loved. He worked with her, in the circus, and one night after a performance they all got drunk and he accused her of being with another man, and he went crazy, and he shot her.”

Bess's shoulders stiffened. “Your mother was in the circus?”

“Yes. She performed with snakes. I remember that. She used to keep all kinds of snakes in cages. Most of them were poisonous, too.”

Bess's breath caught in her throat. “What was her name?”

“Eva.” He looked at her strangely. “Why?”

“Evatima?”

“Yes, but no one ever called her that.” His voice turned sharp. “How would you know that?”

“I—knew her. When Harry and I first started out, in Coney Island.”

Charles stared. “I think I'm getting the chills. This is all becoming too strange.”

Bess had not known Evatima well, but still, she was brought back to those early days, when she and Harry were young, when they lived by the beach. She pictured the woman, alone, cast off by the circus, a single mother with a baby, and Charles, a tiny, tortured boy, sent west on one of those filthy trains she had read about in the papers, brought to a house of strangers to be their son. She was overcome with sadness for all of them, because Evatima was dead, and Harry was dead, and she herself was alone, and Charles was alone. Perhaps, she thought, she and this thin, thoughtful man were more alike than she had first imagined.

Charles cleared his throat. “I think I'm getting too sentimental now. I must be absolutely jagged.” He went back to sit at Harry's desk and lay his head in his arms.

Slowly, and then quickly, like a wave, it crashed upon her. The porter coming to inform her that the train was arriving in New York, a tall young man standing in the narrow corridor, his black cap rimmed with red. She was alone, and in tears; and Harry had sent her away, proclaiming their marriage over. She remembered flirting with a man at the beer hall, and across the room, Harry's hand on Evatima's thigh. It was just after they had married, in June, and the train was crowded with sleepy couples with their heads on each other's shoulders, returning from a weekend at the beach. She did not have enough room to think, but rather a narrow seat in second class and a heavyset woman in and out of sleep next to her. And all the way to her sister's she could not get the image of that smoke-filled room out of her head, the flash of glasses on the tables, and Harry's hand stroking the top of Evatima's dark-stockinged thigh.

She had arrived, sobbing, at her sister's door, and Stella had given her a glass of whiskey, and put her to bed. Bess had crept past the babies' room on the way to her own, and seen through the cracks in the doors the tiny forms sleeping under embroidered white sheets, their closed eyes protecting dreams deep as oceans. She had cried herself to sleep because she would never have children with Harry, now that he had left her. And then he had appeared at Stella's door in the middle of the night, full of remorse, and taken her back to Coney Island, to the marriage she thought he had given up on.

She could barely speak. Her hands were shaking uncontrollably. “When—when were you born?” she choked.

Charles looked up at her. “In 1895. Why?”

“It's not possible.” When she looked at him all she saw was Harry's son. How she could have overlooked it, before, she did not know. Maybe the glasses had masked Charles's most prominent features. But he had a round chin, she saw, and pronounced cheeks, and these were the chin and cheeks of Ehrich Weiss.